SHARJAH INTERNATIONAL BOOK FAIR 2019 Peter Harrington london VAT no. gb 701 5578 50 Peter Harrington Limited. Registered office: WSM Services Limited, Connect House, 133–137 Alexandra Road, Wimbledon, London sw19 7jy. Registered in England and Wales No: 3609982 Peter Harrington 1969 london 2019 SHARJAH INTERNATIONAL BOOK FAIR 2019 70 FINE BOOKS ON EXHIBITION 30 October – 9 November 2019 Opening hours 09.00–22.00 Sunday to Thursday 16.00–23.00 Friday Expo Center Sharjah Al Khan Area, Al Taawun Street, Opp Al Arab Mall Sharjah, UAE mayfair chelsea Peter Harrington Peter Harrington 43 dover street 100 FulHam road london w1s 4FF london sw3 6Hs uk 020 3763 3220 uk 020 7591 0220 eu 00 44 20 3763 3220 eu 00 44 20 7591 0220 usa 011 44 20 3763 3220 www.peterharrington.co.uk usa 011 44 20 7591 0220 One of the first technological books of modern times 1 AGRICOLA, Georgius. De re metallica. Basel: Hieronymus Froben and Nicolaus Bischoff, March 1556 Folio (317 x 219 mm) in sixes, complete with blank leaf [α]6. Seventeenth-cen- first edition. “The first systematic treatise on mining and met- tury calf, skilfully rebacked with original spine laid down, relined, spine gilt allurgy and one of the first technological books of modern times” in compartments, red morocco label, double gilt rules. Housed in a dark (PMM). The book is extensively illustrated with a fine series of brown flat-back cloth box by the Chelsea Bindery. Woodcut title device, re- almost 300 woodcuts, some signed with the monogram “RMD”, peated on Bb6v, 2 woodcut plates (edges folded in), woodcut illustrations generally attributed to Hans Rudolf Manuel Deutsch (fl. 1525–1572) and diagrams in the text, white-on-black initials. Roman, Greek, and gothic or, less commonly, Blasius Weffring. Preparation of the woodcuts types. Binding rubbed and with light scoring, early manuscript notes at head delayed publication until four months after the author’s death. of title; an excellent copy, clean and well-margined, of an important book Mining as an industry underwent dramatic changes in medi- not uncommonly found in poor state. eval Europe, with the centre of technological development being central Europe. From his base in Saxony, the prodigiously scholarly Georgius Agricola (the Latinized name of Georg Pawer) was ideal- ly placed to discuss the technologies used, the chemistry behind the processes of mineral extraction, and—reflecting his role as town physician at Joachimsthal, a centre of mining and smelting works—the health and daily routine of mine workers. One of the prime issues confronting medieval miners (and one which Agricola explains in detail) was the removal of water from mining shafts. Written over a 20-year period between 1530 and 1550, the 12 books have an earlier treatise on subterranean zoology, De animantibus subterraneis (first published Basel: 1549), appended, and “embrace everything connected with the mining industry and metallurgical processes, including administration, prospecting, the duties of of- ficials and companies, and the manufacture of glass, sulphur and alum” (PMM). The final book deals with the production and refin- ing of crude oil and bitumen. Adams A–349; Brunet I, 113; Dibner Heralds 88; Duveen pp.4–5; Grolier Science 2b; Hoover 17; Norman 20; Printing and the Mind of Man 79. £45,000 [80925] 2 Peter Harrington One of the finest books of the Press, with woodcuts of called Hooper almost the last of the old school of wood-engravers King Arthur and the knights of the Round Table and a very fine craftsman. As for the Morte d’Arthur, “It is the only true English ‘epic’; its 2 matter is ‘the Matter of England’. The matchless style, the humour, the magnificence, the magic that takes away the breath, combine in (ASHENDENE PRESS.) MALORY, Sir Thomas. The a masterpiece of legendary narrative” (PMM). noble and joyous book entytled Le Morte Darthur. Ashendene XXVI; Franklin, p. 224. For Malory, see Printing and the Mind of Man 29. Chelsea: Ashendene Press, 1913 £10,000 [121307] Folio. Bound for the publisher by W. H. Smith in brown calf, spine lettered in gilt, boards and turn-ins ruled in gilt. With 2 full page and 27 smaller woodcuts by W. H. Hooper and J. B. Swain after designs by Charles M. Gere and his sister Margaret Gere. Initial letters by Graily Hewitt in red and blue; rubricated chapter headings and shoulder-notes. Ownership stamp to front free endpaper with a little offsetting to facing pastedown. A little rubbing to joints and extremities, a few small darkened areas to front board. An excel- lent, crisp copy. first ashendene edition, one of 145 unnumbered copies print- ed on Batchelor handmade paper (a further 2 copies were printed on Japanese paper and 8 on vellum). The Ashendene Press is count- ed among the best presses of the arts and crafts movement in Eng- land. Founded in 1894 as an amateur’s hobby by the businessman Charles Harry St John Hornby, the press published for sale only 40 titles between 1895 and 1935, yet achieved a reputation for excel- lence with publications that balanced typography and illustration. The Ashendene books fall somewhere between the decorative exuberance of the Kelmscott and the typographic austerity of the Doves presses. The wood engraver William Harcourt Hooper, who had done much work for William Morris at the Kelmscott Press, worked for them from about 1896, notably on the Mazetto Scelto dei Fioretti of St Francis, Dante, and the Morte d’Arthur. St John Hornby All items are fully described and photographed at peterharrington.co.uk 3 The Prince of Wales’s copy of the third great folio of preface acknowledges that several are written by Fletcher with Phil- Jacobean drama ip Massinger, rather than Beaumont. Editorship is usually assigned to the playwright James Shirley, who wrote the preface. Fletcher’s 3 work has also been extensively studied in the context of his collab- oration with Shakespeare on three plays in 1612–13 for the King’s BEAUMONT, Francis, & John Fletcher. Comedies and Company. His solo play, The Woman’s Prize, first published here, is a Tragedies. London: for Humphrey Robinson, and for Humphrey mock-sequel to Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew and depends Moseley, 1647 on knowledge of it. The printing of the folio was farmed out to Folio (343 x 220 mm). Contemporary dark brown morocco for Charles II as several printers, including Susan Islip, a rare example of a female Prince of Wales, gilt-ruled borders and frame with gilt-stamped floral cor- printer in the 17th century. nerpieces, spine with gilt-stamped daisy in each compartment, gilt-stamped The gilt arms on the covers declare this to be the Prince of supralibros (three ostrich feathers emerging from a coronet with motto “Ich Wales’s copy, that is, the future Charles II. Humphrey Moseley was dien”), marbled endpapers. Engraved frontispiece portrait of John Fletcher a decidedly Royalist publisher and the 43 pages of commendatory by William Marshall in second state (reading “Vates Duplex” for “vates du- plex”, and with “J. Berkenhead” in small type), woodcut head- and tailpiec- material in this volume have been described as containing “a liter- es, decorative initials. Bookplate of Robert S. Pirie. Head and foot of spine ary manifesto of Cavalier writers” (Wright, 82). From their point of renewed, title and frontispiece soiled, extreme edges of margins very lightly view, the book was published during the darkest days of the Eng- browned, a handsome volume. lish Civil War, with Charles I a prisoner under house arrest—Gran- first edition, modelled on the first two folio collections of dison’s poetical address “To the Stationer” opens: “Tell the sad Shakespeare’s plays (1623 and 1632) and the first two folios of the World that now the lab’ring Presse / Has brought forth safe a Child works of Ben Jonson (1616 and 1640–1). These folios are often cred- of Happiness”. ited with establishing a recognisably modern concept of the indi- Greg III, 1013; Pforzheimer 53; Wing B1581. vidual author, but the Beaumont and Fletcher folio is more com- £27,500 [108348] plicated in that regard. It contains 39 plays, of which very few are actually collaborations between Beaumont and Fletcher. Even the 4 Peter Harrington The most ambitious edition of the Bible produced in promising a bible that would be “finished in a style of elegance (and Britain magnificence in Paper, Printing, and Engraving) of which there is not in Europe or the world any example”. It took Macklin 11 years 4 to complete, and the eventual cost of £30,000 almost bankrupted him. Though the final engraving was finished five days before his (BIBLE; English.) MACKLIN, Thomas. The Old [and death, the last of the vignettes was not completed for another six New] Testament. Embellished with Engravings from weeks, and consequently he never saw the finished work. Pictures and Designs by the Most Eminent English ESTC T123175; Herbert 1441; Lowndes vol. I, p. 192. Artists. London: Printed for Thomas Macklin by Thomas £6,750 [131215] Bensley, 1800 7 volumes, large folio (458 mm x 370 mm). Contemporary russia, rebacked to style in morocco, spines lettered and tooled in gilt, gilt ruled and foliate border to covers, marbled endpapers, gilt edges. With 71 full-page copper engravings after Fuseli and others, most with tissue-guards (some recent, some absent), engraved vignette head- and tailpieces, engraved dedicato- ry page. Half-titles present. Some light rubbing to covers with minor wear around extremities, small insect hole to rear joint and rear turn-in of vol. IV, a very few instances of foxing and minor blemishes, but generally clean.